How Did We Get HERE? with Pastor Ryan Braley

Let's pray together this morning.

Amen, all right, thank you, betty, let's pray.

God, we give you thanks this morning for your presence here and we do thank you for our little ones in this congregation, in this community, and we're so blessed to have them.

And thanks Emery, thank you for Emery.

Bless him this morning.

And God, we do ask that you give us yet a cleaner, a clearer who we are and what we're doing here this morning.

And, god, as we explore this topic of how did we get here, would you give us wisdom and insight and clarity into this question?

And, god, may we be curious and may we be open to learning, whatever it is you might have to teach us this morning.

And by your spirit, would you transform our lives as always.

And we pray these things in holy and precious.

In your holy and precious name, amen, amen.

You can be seated.

Good morning everyone.

I lost my black marker, so if you see a black marker, that's probably mine, but I've got a blue one, so we're going to be just fine.

How are we doing?

Good man, I love having the little kids around here.

I mean that when I said our multi-generational-ness.

It's really, really rare, so we want to protect that and keep it.

And also I want to tell you, listen, part of my thesis that I'm working on now is this idea of elders, and by and large in the Western, at least in the United States, the idea of an elder has gone away for all kinds of reasons.

So I want to let you, if you consider yourself an elder here this morning, you know who you are.

We need you and we need you to pour into the lives of those who are younger, and so we love having our elders around and giving us wisdom and discernment and clarity and insight.

And if you're young here, hey, we need you and love you as well.

We need your passion and your enthusiasm and even a bit of your naivete.

That's good, we like that.

We need to have some of that to keep us fresh and from getting old and in spirit I mean so we need each other desperately, and it's good for the family, it's good for the community to have these kinds of things.

Fair enough, all right, I guess it's just me.

I'm excited about it.

Well, I was moving.

I thought I was moved by that.

Anyway, we're on a new journey here.

We're going to start our Genesisesis series.

I love, I love the book of genesis.

I'm a jesus guy, of course, like I mean I'm, I love jesus, but, um, my favorite book in the bible is probably genesis.

I, I think it's fascinating and I love it, and I'm a story guy, so the jesus stories, of course, are my favorite too, but I love genesis.

And here's the deal, though open your bibles.

If you have them, and mine's right here, I'm gonna grab mine, uh, and turn to the book of exodus.

Is the second book in the bible actually, just turn to genesis one.

It's on page I'm guessing page four or something like that but have it open to genesis one.

And then, if you notice, the second book of the bible, as I've already said, is the book of exodus.

Now, if you were to ask a jew, uh, generally, and if you notice, the second book of the Bible, as I've already said, is the book of Exodus.

Now, if you were to ask a Jew generally, and if you were to ask an ancient Hebrew, hey, which story in the Bible is like the central story for you?

And most of them would probably answer not Genesis but the book of Exodus, because it's the story of God's liberation of the people of Israel.

They were enslaved in Egypt for 600 years, give or take, or for hundreds of years, and then God delivers them.

It was an incredible story of the move and the power of God and the spirit of God and his work of redemption, salvation and liberation.

It becomes a motif for the whole Bible right that there's all kinds of allusions back to Exodus, where people are enslaved and God liberates them.

People go into slavery and God liberates them.

It's this beautiful story that Exodus was like the story in the Hebrew psyche and consciousness.

But it raises the question when you open Exodus, you're like, hey, there's a bunch of people enslaved in Egypt and it raises the question how did they get there?

How did, like you know, potentially millions of Jews or people of Israelites they weren't Jews yet.

How did these Israelites become enslaved?

How did they get there?

And what is Israel anyway?

Is it a person?

Is it a nation?

Is it just a big family?

How'd they get so big?

Why are there so many of these Israelites?

And who's this Pharaoh and why did he put them into slavery?

It raises all these fascinating questions.

The biggest one is how did we get here?

And to understand that you have to then rewind one book and read Genesis.

That's how you learn.

How did we get there?

And here's the thing I would like to propose.

I think we can do the same, because the question is also for us how did we get here?

And I mean that in every way and in every sense of that word.

How did we get here?

How did you get here?

How did you get here this morning?

How did you get here?

How do you exist, even, and not just that, but how about all the things?

How did all the things get here, all the stuff in the world?

How did the world get here?

How did we get here?

And also, you could ask why then are we here?

What are we doing here?

And is this thing headed anywhere?

Is it just one random series of events after another?

Maybe Is there another way to frame the world?

How did we get here?

Why are we here?

What did we get here?

Why are we here?

What did we do?

Why are we doing here?

Why do we like watching a little boy dance over here?

Everyone's laughing and taking pictures, and why do we care?

What's that?

Who cares?

What is going on?

So, how did we get here?

And I would like to suggest these ancient texts, especially the Bible, the reason the Bible for thousands of years has been so popular and well-read and well-known it's the best-selling book of all time is because it speaks deeply to this question on every level.

And I believe for us to know how we got here, we have to rewind and read the book of Genesis.

So that's what we're going to do.

We're going to read Genesis and explore how did we get here?

And I'm just realizing this pen is not even open, it's still in the wrapper.

So while I riff here for a moment, uh, I'll get there.

Okay, got it.

That was a close call.

How do we get here?

To understand how we got here, we have to, of course, begin in the beginning.

You got it.

Look at you, you're tracking.

This is how the book of Genesis opens In the beginning.

By the way, the word for the book of Genesis in the Hebrew is the word bereshit.

Everyone say bereshit.

Bereshit just means beginnings.

So in beginnings, in the beginning, which, which raises the question, the beginning of what?

Everything?

Okay, someone's paying attention everything it.

Before there was time, space and matter.

Before there was an up and a down, a left and a right, side to side, and hours and days and second hands ticking by and things moving through the sky, or things growing or falling, or before any of that there was.

Well, in this case there was God.

But what did that look like before?

There was time and space and things that you could hold and measure and taste and touch.

What did what did before, before the beginning?

What did it look like, what did it sound like, what did it smell like?

I don't know, but in the beginning, god God, by the way, is the word in the Hebrew in this part of the Bible is the word Elohim.

Everyone say Elohim.

I'll write it just so you can see it.

So it's this word E-L-O-H-I-M.

Now, elohim is not the same as the word Yahweh.

Yahweh is a personal name given to God later on.

In this case, Elohim is a generic title for God, like Elohim was used for many of the gods or bodies of like celestial sort of divine beings in the ancient world, and in this case, this is a story about, in this beginning, this God.

But who is this God and what's he like?

What does he do?

How is this God different from any of the other gods that were around?

By the way, when this book, genesis Bereshit, came onto the scene, there were lots of these stories about the beginnings and how sort of people got here.

This is this Israelite story.

And so what is this God this Elohim like?

Well, one thing we know is that this God is outside of time and he's outside of space.

This God exists, whatever that means or looks like, before anything and by that I mean things existed.

This God is not bound by time and space.

Whatever time and space are, this God exists before them.

Here I am using these words that don't actually fit, because before time is what does that mean?

So, before time and space, this God exists.

This God is not bound by time and space.

But you know who is bound by time and space Us.

So how can us, those who are bound by time and space, how can we even talk about this kind of God that exists outside?

How do we talk about God?

What words can we use?

What pictures, what metaphors can we use?

Well, I know this for sure none of them will do this God justice, because this God exists outside of these things.

God isn't a thing or a being that I can hold and measure and taste and touch.

God is something transcendent or above and beyond that.

So my words will have to do.

It's all I have.

But all speak of this God would seemingly be metaphor or illusion or picture or parable, because this God exists outside of time and space.

Also, how would we know this God that exists outside of time and space?

How would we ever get to know this God?

What this God is like, well, maybe we'll find out later on in the story, but either way, in the beginning God creates heavens and earth.

Wow, what a strange way to begin a very long book.

Now we're told when this God creates, the word for creates is bara.

Everyone say bara.

Here's the Hebrew word for bara.

In the beginning, god Elohim creates, and bara is not just a.

There's lots of words for create or creates, but this word is bara.

Bara has lots of energy or vibrancy or life to it.

So this God begins to create and has this sense of urgency, the sense of vibrant creativity to this God.

And when he does the earth, as you heard, read, betty read.

You heard Betty read earlier.

Thank you, betty.

The earth was formless and void and in the Hebrew the word is tohu vavohu, which gives me great pleasure to say Tohu vavohu.

I love it.

It sounds like a magic spell or something like that.

But tohu vavohu really means wild and waste or empty.

It's this idea of like, this wild and waste, this untamed chaos, if you will.

And so the earth was formless and void.

It was tohu vavohu, by the way, many ancient Jewish scholars at least, maybe other scholars as well thought the opposite of something.

So of something the opposite of that was not nothing.

The opposite of something was like this disorganized chaos, a malevolent, malicious force.

So that's the opposite.

So maybe, before this God creates something, there was this wild and waste, this tohu vavohu.

And then we read that the earth was formless and void.

And this spirit of God actually, I think in your version, the new, revised version says it I think it was the wind of God.

So there is this spirit of God.

Why doesn't it just say God?

Why does it say in the beginning, the spirit of God was hovering over the waters?

Why doesn't it just say in the beginning, this God was hovering over the waters?

Well, somehow there's this spirit element to this creative Elohim.

This creative Elohim also has a spirit to this thing, and this spirit is hovering over the waters.

Water is, of course, is a symbol in the ancient world, not just of cleansing in the kingdom of rebirth, but also like organized or disorganized chaos, malevolence, malicious.

This is where, like the unknown, the mysterious things in the world live.

Remember the story when Jesus cast the demons out of that man who's demon possessed, and he throws them into the pigs.

Remember that story.

And then the pigs go off a cliff into the what?

The water, the sea.

Of course they would.

That's where they belong.

The water is this chaotic, malevolent force, where the evil things belong.

So this Elohim, this spirit, is hovering over the waters and this water is this tohu vavohu, this wild and waste, this chaotic thing.

What a strange way to begin this very long book.

Sorry, guys, I don't know if you can see my hair, I'll put this over here.

And then there we go.

I'm getting nervous.

And then God speaks.

What did that sound like?

God speaks and creates.

What does he say?

Let there be light.

And there was light.

So this God, by his word, by the things he spoke, by his we'll say word, this God begins to create.

So this Elohim has this almost like a multiplicity to itself.

This God is creative in energy, this God has a spirit and this God speaks and with this word he creates light.

And then this God separates the light from the dark, he calls the light day and the dark night, and he sees that it is good.

And then the text was evening and it was morning.

This is the first day.

Here's my question um, what kind of light was this?

You notice that that this god in this story has not created a sun or a moon or a star yet.

This God simply creates light.

What kind of light was this?

The great rabbi Eleazar says that in the beginning, when God creates this light, with this light one could see from one end of the universe all the way to the other end of the universe.

What kind of light is this?

Also, where did it come from?

What does it look like?

Somebody else, another scholar, says that with this light, whatever it was out of, this light fashions the sun, of course later on.

So this God creates light, separates the light from the dark, calls the light day and the dark night.

This God sees that this was good and it was evening and it was morning the first day.

Then God says there'll be an expanse in between the water above and the waters below, or a dome.

Let me separate waters and I will put in there this expanse.

And so God creates the sky and with water, he separates the waters above from the waters below and creates the sky and this water by separating these things.

And God looks at it and then, of course, god says it was evening, or not God.

But the poet says it was evening and it was morning the second day.

So so here we are, two days in, we already have this repetition, this reprise, this over and over, this repeated thing.

It was evening, it was morning, it was evening and it was morning the first day.

And then, of course, the second day.

And then God says, hey, let's separate these waters and let's remove them, push them back just a little bit, and in doing so I will create dry land.

Then push them back just a little bit, and in doing so I will create dry land, and when I gather the waters I'll call them the seas, and in these seas will be all kinds of things you'll see in just a minute.

But we'll have this dry land up here and God sees the land, and he sees the seas and he calls it.

He says, hey, this is good, and it was evening, good, and it was evening and it was morning the third day.

And then god says this let the?

Uh.

What does he say next?

Let me look at my text here.

Uh, yes, let there be lights, thank you.

Let there be lights in the expanse.

So, in this expanse, let the light's in there, and by these lights'll govern our days and our years and our seasons.

And so God hangs in the sky, in the expanse that he's made by separating waters, he hangs the sun and, as that one commentator said, by this light God fashions the sun and the moon and, of course, the stars and the moon and of course the stars.

And God says in a couple of thousands of years, young, love-struck boys will pay money on the internet to name these stars after their girlfriend for Valentine's Day.

Whoa, what a con job that is.

I should have gone there.

And God sees the sun and the moon and the stars and he says this is good.

And it was evening and it was morning the fourth day.

And then God says let the skies be teeming with life and let's put birds, winged creatures that fly around in the skies, that swoop and dive and curve into the sky and we'll call these things birds and let's let the waters be teeming with life, with fish and dolphins and sharks and whales and all kinds of wonderful sea creatures and let them reproduce according to their kind, and we promise we won't look, thank you.

And God says it was good, and it was evening and it was morning this is, of course, the fifth day.

And then god said let's create wild animals, animals that crawl along the ground, that frighten people, and animals that swing from tree to tree to tree and they shall eat bananas Because of that, I don't know.

And let us create animals that prowl through the jungle at night.

And let us create little, tiny dogs whose owners dress them in fancy sweaters at Christmas time.

And God says that's a little bit weird, but it's good Animals.

You know who you are.

And then god says let's make mankind in our image, male and female in our image.

Somehow, this god, whose multiplicity has this image to it and this creation will bear it, this humankind made of male, hum, male and female.

God creates these humans.

And then God says this is very good.

And it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day.

And then Genesis 2,.

God just steps back and looks at it all and says this is indeed good.

And then God rests, which raises the question why is he resting?

Is he tired?

Did he expend his energy?

Does this God, who exists outside of time and space, have energy to expend and he's depleted?

Or is there perhaps something else going on?

And then God blesses it?

The great Abraham Joshua, heshel said in the beginning the world only had one holiness, a holiness in time.

So on day seven God rests.

Huh, what a fascinating story.

Now, if you'll notice, birds go in the sky and fish go in water.

Thank you, it's been great.

Of course the sun and the moon and the stars go up here, which is essentially this idea of this space.

Animals and humankind sort of fill the land and the seas.

It's as though in the first three days God is creating space, a container, an opening room.

But it's not until day four, five and six that God begins to fill those containers.

And so God puts into these open spaces the things he creates in four, five and six.

Suddenly, this poem has all this connection to it, and the things that were created in four, five and six fill days one, two and three.

This is an interesting poem.

They're all interconnected, they all go together and yet also there's this, if you probably have noticed.

How in the world did you know it was day one and two and three, because, after all, the thing that we measure our days by, the sun, doesn't come onto the scene until day number four.

How would anybody have known what a day was on day one, two and three if the sun had not even yet been created?

What an interesting poem.

How did we get here?

Also, I wonder if there are any other kinds of little hidden gems or nuggets or patterns in this story, in this great poem that is the beginning of time and space.

Well, I don't know if you know this, but the opening line in the Hebrew has seven words.

It says All right.

The second line in the Hebrew has 14 words, which is seven times two.

If I did the math correctly, the word earth in this poem in the Hebrew is mentioned 21 times the seventh, which is seven times three.

In case you're following along, the seventh paragraph has 35 words in it.

The word God is used 35 times.

Both.

Seven times five equals 35.

Five touchdowns in an NFL football game is 35 points.

That's how I always remember the phrase it was.

So is mentioned seven times in this poem.

Seven times one, of course.

And God saw also seven times the seventh day.

The whole part about the seventh day has 35 words in it, sevens, all over the place.

There are also threes, and that raises the question are there tens?

There are, you can find them on your own, we don't have time.

There are lots of sevens and threes and tens.

What does this mean?

What a fascinating poem.

You can find them on your own, we don't have time.

There are lots of sevens and threes and tens.

What does this mean?

What a fascinating poem.

You begin to think, when reading this part too, that maybe the poet had some help in writing this.

Hey, chat GPT, if I was going to write a poem about creation, just kidding, god didn't use chat GPT.

If he did, it was just for grammar.

Just checking the grammar and spelling right.

Right, if you were to pick this poem up having never read it before, what is it about?

What is this poet trying to say?

What is it trying to tell us?

What would you make of this poem?

Well, I ran out of space again, so I'm going to go over here.

I have a red one.

No, I don't have time.

This is a story.

It starts with god creating.

That's how it begins, this god, this elohim, that we're going to find out more and more about as the days go on.

This god has a multiplicity, maybe a threeness and oneness.

I don't know.

Yet we'll find out who exists out of time and space, but baras, with this vibrant energy this God creates.

That's how it begins, and this God ends, or this story ends with God resting, and then, somewhere in between, are humans, humans are created, and we're sort of stuck in this middle Humans so creating, resting, and then us in the middle, and of course there is this repetition evening and morning, evening and morning, evening and morning, which, by the way, maybe you've noticed, that's not how we measure days.

We don't say evening and then morning.

We say morning and then evening.

I'll come back to that.

In the meantime, though, notice that these each have a ending Evening, morning, evening, then morning.

We say morning and then evening.

I'll come back to that.

In the meantime, though, notice that these each have an ending Evening, morning, evening, morning, on down the line.

But day seven doesn't end with an evening and morning.

It's as though day seven just keeps on going In this meandering stream kind of a way.

Just keeps on going and just keeps on going.

There's really no ending to the seventh day.

It would seem it doesn't have this evening and then morning and then evening and then morning.

It doesn't have that.

It just keeps on going.

I wonder what to make of that.

It's as though day seven doesn't really end, maybe, which maybe means that you and I are somehow still in the midst of this seventh day evening and morning, evening and morning.

What do we make of that?

By the way, as I mentioned, we say morning and then evening, but not in this story.

It's evening and then morning.

Just so you're clear, I'm going to write it down Evening to morning.

It's as though this story is perhaps a story about evening going into morning.

In fact, the Jews, to this day, still kind of measure their days in this way.

This is maybe a story, or maybe even a book, a very long book about things that begin in the evening and end in morning.

You could say it this way this is a story or a book, at least a poem, about darkness turning into light.

Hmm, what a fascinating book.

Also, there's this Did you notice?

There's like a flow to this.

One question I'm asked all the time Does this life mean anything, does it?

And for some the answer is no.

I wake up, I do my things and I go to bed.

Eventually, one day I will die and the lights go off.

That's all there is to it and, to be honest, I'm not 100% certain myself I've never died and come back but there's another way to frame this life, that perhaps there is something else going on.

This thing is headed somewhere and this story might seem to suggest just that.

There is a flow to this story.

Things begin on day one very simple, very ordinary light, dark, got it.

Then it gets a little bit more complex skies and waters, and land and seas and then a bit more complex or more detailed, to sun and moon and stars, and then you get even more with birds, organic life.

Oh, this is getting more complex and more advanced as you keep going, as you go down the line, and then you come to animals and humans.

It's just so.

Every day gets a bit more complex and less ordinary, more ornate, more intricate as the days go by.

Okay, I'll put it this way Stick, frisbee and Applevision.

Somebody was like oh, I got it.

Okay, good, because did you notice?

In day two, or rather in Genesis 2, there's another creation story and in that story God creates Adam.

He picks up some dirt and breathes into it.

That's the story of the creation of Adam.

But then God says he looks at Adam, I think I can create something a bit more advanced.

Girl power yeah, all right.

All right, hope, my wife heard that one.

And he creates woman.

And they called her woman because when Adam saw her he was like whoa man.

That's an old joke, but I had to use it.

So I wonder if this story might suggest this thing is heading somewhere.

There is a God who's bringing out of the simple, who's making things a bit more advanced and more complex.

There's an arc to this thing.

This is the same God who was hovering over the waters, the spirit of God.

This chaos is wild and wastes, and then begins to speak.

As he speaks, things need to be organized.

God organizes the chaos and begins to make a world out of the chaos.

He takes the wild and waste and makes something good out of it.

It's called good several times.

Okay, I'll just be explicit.

How many of you could use a God who takes chaos and makes order out of it?

How many of you in your life are like man?

My life is a mess.

I could use a God who can make something good out of this thing Just me, then Fair enough, okay, I'll keep going then.

Of this thing, just me, then Fair enough, okay, I'll keep going then.

This is that kind of God who makes evening turn into morning, who takes wild and waste, chaos, disorder, this watery sort of nothing, malevolent force.

He makes something good actually very good out of it and makes things more intricate as the time goes by.

So how did we get here?

How did we get here?

What does this mean?

What do we do with all this?

Well, this is a story about a God who makes darkness into light.

I could use a God like that.

This is about a God who takes chaos and organizes it, makes something good out of it.

I don't know why chaos exists Maybe chaos isn't all bad or disorder, but this God can begin to put things into proper order.

This is a God who sees the creation and calls it good.

As I mentioned, there were lots of these creation narratives in the time.

This one emerged, or, yeah, arises, and one of the predominant one was rather a story about gods in the heavens who were warring, and the violence of these gods sort of affects the whole rest of the.

That's how the creation kind of is birthed out of.

This is by destructive, evil, malevolent forces in the heavens, and then creation is born.

Not this story about creation.

In this story, this God is overwhelmed, it seems like, with goodness and then creates something good and beautiful, sort of maybe to be enjoyed, to be resting.

I mean, these are all wonderful things.

This God rests why?

Maybe because this God wants us to know.

Or the creation like, hey, hey, you're not a machine, like the great steven king once said, life is not a support system for your job.

Rather, it's the other way around.

Maybe there is something to be enjoyed, there's resting to be had, there's life, there's goodness to be found in the ordinary moments of life.

This is a good life, a good creation.

You weren't here because some gods in the heavens had a cosmic battle and you were the result of that, and you don't really know what those gods are thinking or doing.

This is something different.

This is good and to be enjoyed.

It's very good.

When my son was in seventh grade actually, he'd been playing basketball since he was a little boy and he played travel basketball, which of course meant at the time he was going to go into the NBA.

Undoubtedly Parents are like oh, I know, I know, yeah, and it wasn't until around sixth, seventh grade I realized he probably won't go to the NBA.

I mean, we'll still see.

Probably not.

And he probably and I love my son he probably won't make the varsity basketball team at the high school.

There's only five kids that do and you've got a whole four grades and we had invested all this time and energy and money and I thought to myself, if he's not going to the NBA, what was it all for?

What have we been doing this whole time?

And then it dawned on me we were enjoying our son and time with him, even though I thought, oh, we're going to the NBA, maybe someday.

No, that was the case, we were just spending time with him.

There's something about this creation that we're to enjoy and to be present with and to rest in order to do that.

There's a rhythm, there are seasons to this thing.

As god begins to make evening into morning, in order where there's disorder.

Central lutheran church.

As we begin to explore how we got here, may may you know that our story begins with a God who creates and calls it good, and that would include you.

Even on those days you wake up and it's not a good hair day or you feel a tad bloated, god still calls you good, and when your life is in disorder, tina gets it.

It's a good time to end, probably.

May you know this is a God who brings light from darkness and order and goodness out of chaos.

Amen.